


Family Vacation

by nicKnack22



Series: Nested [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dad!Dean, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Happy, Human Castiel, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Vacation, dad!Cas, dean and cas are parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2302274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicKnack22/pseuds/nicKnack22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma is three the first time she goes on a vacation...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Vacation

Emma is three the first time she goes on a vacation. Dean figures she's big enough, at this point, to at least partially retain the experience; Cas believes firmly that visiting new places is a 'vital part of her cognitive and emotional development' (because Cas talks like that, which is why Emma's vocabulary will probably be off the charts in three languages before she's in first grade), and, frankly, both her daddies survived the terrible twos with with only moderate scarring, and they all probably deserve a little bit of a break. 

They go to the beach. It might not be the most original vacation destination in the world, at least on an abstract level, but Dean hasn't set foot on a beach since he was twelve—that time they were in Delaware. He took Sam to build sand castles and catch hermit crabs and they'd had the most kick ass burgers for lunch. Cas...well, Cas hasn't been to the beach since the Man Upstairs invented the beach (shit was a lot less commercialized back then). Emma with her big eyes and bigger smile hasn't had the pleasure either. Plus, Cas gets this weird wistful look in his eyes when Dean brings it up casually (maybe, he’s nostalgic for the beginning of time…when things were simpler and humanity hadn’t evolved into douchebags yet), and Dean is still a sucker for Cas’ baby blues. Plus, you know, Emma had heard them talking about it, and basically jumped out of her skin with excitement, so that was that.

Dean, who grew up lugging his few possessions in a single duffel bag, and Cas, whose sole physical possession for five years was a suit, spend an inordinate and unexpected amount of time packing. Swimsuits, jeans, shoes; shampoo and sunscreen, sippy-cups and Mr. Bear, and "Cas, have you seen my Zep tee?" and "Dean, please, don't forget the aloe," quick kisses exchanged as they run between bedrooms. Emma wanting to help Cas: passing him things to put in her bag, getting a kiss along with every solemn thank you. Emma 'hiding' in the suitcases, popping out to scare Dean (who jumps back in mock terror before promptly scooping her up and blowing a raspberry on her tummy to gales of laughter), and stealing his sunglasses, running away like it's the funniest thing ever, seeking shelter with Cas, who, mischievously accepts the glasses she puts on the bridge of his nose, which is just a blatant invitation for Dean to chase after them both and they end up in a tickle fight on the living room couch, Cas with his eyes crinkled, Emma breathless, and Dean's cheeks hurting from smiling.

It takes a while, but finally, the bags are packed, Emma is strapped into her car seat wearing (her very own) hot pink sunglasses and her brand new Big Bird flip flops. Dean loads the last bag in the trunk, over the trap door that still holds and emergency cache of weapons, and Cas makes sure the house is locked, and then they're on the open road. Emma chatters happily for the first leg of their journey, excited to be on an adventure; she tells them about the park she went to yesterday, and 'will there be sea turtles at the beach like in Nemo?', and dinosaurs, and 'can we build a sand castle, daddy?'. They all play eye spy. Then Emma droops off, the combination of Impala's engine and Metallica better than any lullaby. Cas takes Dean's hand and squeezes it, smiling in this soft way that he has wherever Dean and Emma are concerned. It makes Dean's heart skip a beat, still, every time. 

Emma wakes up cranky, rubbing her eyes, and grumbling. She’s wearing the scowl she inherited from Cas. It’s surprisingly no less intimidating or terrifying on her tiny face. 

“Hey, baby girl,” Dean greets with a smile.

Emma glares. Dean has to stifle his laughter, when he laughs at Cas’ ‘not a morning person’ grumpiness, he faces dire consequences. Cas seems to catch Dean’s thoughts cause he accidently on purpose elbows him while he passes Emma an a juice box (Berry, Berry Lemonade! the label proudly proclaims). Juice boxes, Dean thinks, are like Red Eyes but for preschoolers, cause after a few moments of moody sipping, Emma is ready to go. Cas reads Green Eggs and Ham. Dean and Emma simultaneously shout the title every time they come across it in the book, and Dean winks at Emma in the rearview mirror every time they do, she smiles brightly at their shared venture and Dean feels like a million bucks. 

It doesn’t take as long to settle into the beach house as it did to leave their own. Though, going to the beach with a toddler involves some prep work, he and Cas have a system with Emma and they adapt it to the new circumstances. Dean takes care of the food (PB&J for him and Cas, peanut butter and banana for Emma, who happens to take after her weirdo uncle in that department). He packs carrot sticks and apple slices and pretzels and (cause they’re on vacation) chocolate Teddy Grahams (cause they’re awesome and cause he and Emma have a perverse need to decapitate the bears before they eat them, which Cas finds bizarre and disturbing). He throws water bottles and juice boxes in the beaten up green cooler that used to hold cheap beer. Cas takes care of the ‘play time’ stuff: buckets and shovels for digging in the sand, a big blanket he found in the hall closet and a beach umbrella—ironically rainbow colored—for them to set up as the base of their operations, towels and sunscreen (zinc just in case), a first aid kit (because Cas likes to be prepared, and Dean knows that he would rather err on the side of caution where the health and safety of his family is concerned). Cas brings wet wipes for after lunch and a radio because he knows that Dean will want music. 

Emma helps them both alternatively. She likes to wrap the sandwiches in tin foil when Dean is finished putting them together (she wants to cut them in triangles, but Dean desperately doesn’t want to be the one to put a knife in his daughter’s hand, even one so innocuous as a butter knife—Cas is clearly in charge of table etiquette in their household), and she picks out the types of juice boxes that they’ll take to the beach, making sure to specify whose is whose (Cas gets organic fruit punch, Dean gets apple juice, and Emma sticks with her pink lemonade). She helps Cas fold the towels, and she tries not to squirm and wiggle even though it tickles when Cas applies sunscreen to her tummy. She does not like it going on her face, but Cas lets her do his to make up for it. Dean chuckles when he sees Cas with mismatched streaks of white across his cheeks and forehead, working to smooth out Emma’s handiwork with his own fingers, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to Cas’ mouth when he’s finished. 

Emma looks very confusedly at Dean’s bare calves once he changes into his swim trunks—Cas laughs and reminds him that she’s probably never seen him in shorts. Dean gets loaded down with all the accouterments of beach travel, the cooler, the beach bag, the umbrella. Emma rides shotgun on Cas’ shoulders—Dean doesn’t envy him, Emma is bouncing and squirming enough for Dean to wince in sympathy, but Cas and Emma both look happy (even if the former looks somewhat sheepish after taking a heel to the collarbone), and Dean loves watching the two of them together. 

The sand burns between his toes. The sun is high and warm. There’s literally not a cloud in the sky. He takes a deep breath, the salty air settles deep into his lungs. 

“Daddy!” Emma cries, pointing at the seagulls swooping overhead, “Daddy, look!” 

“Like the pterodactyls, right, kiddo?” 

Emma gives him the, “they’re totally different species, dad, duh,” look, but indulges his ignorance with a simple roll of the eyes, before turning back to Cas to talk about birds and evolution, and ‘yes, Emma, dinosaurs did have feathers, I saw them myself.’ 

Dean drops the gear, and Cas promptly passes the kid over. Emma is a wriggly, squirmy, slimy (with so much suntan lotion) ball of excitement. 

“Go,” Cas says, “show her the water, I’ll set up.”

Dean presses another kiss to Cas’ lips. He says “I love you and I’m so fucking lucky to have you” with the brush of this free hand against Cas’ cheek. Cas holds his fingers for a moment, a steady beat of “I love you, too,” before Emma loses her patience with her lovesick fathers. 

“Daaaadddddyyyyyyy,” she wines impatiently (because it’s apparently Dean’s fault). 

Dean flips her upside down, flips her right-side up, lands her on her feet, and races her to the ocean.

Emma claps her hands and crows with delight at the first wave of (fucking freezing!) cold water around her ankles. She and Dean chase the waves and getting chased back to shore, laughing when they get caught, their toes sinking into the wet sand every time they pause for breath. Emma’s hair is damp and sticky, getting tangled by the breeze coming off the ocean, it’s gonna be a bitch combing it out tonight, but she’s happy as a clam, leaping about, grabbing Dean’s fingers to drag him back towards the surf whenever he feigns tiredness. When Cas ambles down to meet them, their wet, sandy, beach monster of a child half flies at him, and Cas scoops her up, tosses her high in the air, and catches her with the ease of long practice. Dean and Cas swing her between them, each taking one of her hands. The grownups are knee deep in the water, but it’s much higher on Emma, up to her chest, every time a wave comes, she jumps tucking her knees and kicking her feet, splashing Dean and Cas exuberantly. 

“One, two, three,” she shrieks as each wave approaches, causing Dean to laugh and Cas to praise her athleticism and numerical sensibilities, teaching her how to do countdowns in other languages.

Cas is meticulous about reapplying sunscreen to his fairer skinned family members. Emma and Dean share a groan at being dragged to the shore. They flail dramatically upon the blanket, while Cas applies lotion to Dean and Dean applies it to Emma. Emma uses suntan lotion to paint shapes and sigils and runes on Cas, who willingly allows himself to be their daughter’s canvas. 

They eat sandwiches in the afternoon sun, careful to hide their goodies from the prowling gulls. Emma takes a nap in the shade of the umbrella, and Cas gently drapes a towel over her to further protect her from the harsh midday rays of the sun. Cas reads, while Dean naps, drifting on the edge of sleep, but always aware of Emma at his back and Cas at his side. 

-

The week passes in a similar haze of relaxation, sunshine, and playfulness. Dean and Emma both get sunburned; Emma across her nose, Dean along his shoulders. Cas kisses it to make it feel better, though, in Dean’s case, the kissing takes place after dark and moves from the sensitive flesh of his reddened shoulders to other, more sensitive, areas. Emma’s hair lightens considerably over the week, turning almost gold, with reddish highlights flaring to life. Cas just gets darker, though he turns about seventeen different shades of brown since Emma continues to apply his sunscreen in irregular and artistic patterns of her own invention. 

Most evenings they grill for dinner, burgers and hotdogs, chicken and fish. There are vegetables on the menu every night because it’s important to keep the kid growing on a healthy, well-balanced diet. Emma loves helping Dean and Cas cook, loves arranging veggies in rainbow patterns on spears, standing on a stool to watch (and direct) while Dean moves the food around the grill. She tries clams for the first time (which she thinks are awesome) and shrimp (which she decidedly does not like at all). 

-

They go out for crabs one night. Emma is deeply intrigued by the process of eating them, as is Cas, and in both cases, Dean finds it adorable. Cas easily picks up the ins and outs of prying the meat out of the exoskeleton, but Emma doesn’t have the ability to dissect the buggers yet, so it’s left to Dean to feed her. She sits at his elbow, alternating between coloring on her menu and opening her mouth wide for Dean or Cas to pop some of the juicy bits into her mouth. 

“Didn’t know we were raising a baby bird,” Dean quips.

“Tweet, tweet,” Emma replies. 

Cas snorts iced tea up his nose. 

He rubs his barefoot against the inside of Dean’s calf all through dinner. 

They go out for ice cream sometimes, strolling down the street afterwards, casual, comfortable. Dean and Cas with their sticky fingers intertwined; Emma’s face covered strawberry ice cream as she chases fireflies. 

-

They spend one afternoon collecting seashells. Dean carries the buckets, one each for Cas and Emma, since he has no interest in collecting shells himself. Emma likes the brightly colored ones. She scours the beach avidly, and runs back with each new gem clutched proudly in her fingers, ready for inspection. Cas is similarly meticulous, but his preference is the broken ones, edges worn smooth by the sea, he likes discarded bits—sea glass and drift wood, things that no one else would find all that pretty, but Cas handles carefully, as he explains to Emma about sea creatures and tides, about moon phases and shifting landmasses—she follows every word with rapt attention. When they get home, Cas explains, they can put their shells around the house, in jam jars, so they can remember their trip. Emma, he assures her, can make her very own if she wants. 

“Can I make one for you and daddy?” she asks.

The corners of Cas’ mouth twitch with laughter, but he responds seriously, “If you would like to.”

“Will you put in your room?”

“In a place of honor,” he promises her. 

Emma proceeds to collect extra special shells for her papa and her daddy with attention to those that will look the prettiest. 

-

The three of them spend a memorable morning building a sandcastle, complete with moat. Cas is particularly dedicated to the turrets. Emma and Cas bury Dean in the sand (Dean finds this relaxing even if he gets sand in weird places, and it’s fun to rise out of the mess like a corny B movie monster, chasing his family around the beach, splashing around in the water afterwards to get clean). 

-

They build a fire one evening on the beach. The three of them trekking down the dunes at dusk, in jeans and hoodies, the air crisp, cool with the sea breeze, the sand soft and chilly between their toes. Once the blaze is really going they settle around it, Emma curling up on Dean’s lap, Dean perching his chin on top of her head. Cas tells them a story about a beach a long time ago, about the people who lived there and the world they inhabited, about fires like this one, built at night to conjure spirits, to summon the divine, to connect with one another. When he finishes, Emma moves to curl on his lap, so that Dean can pick up his guitar. He plays soothing songs, gentle ones for a summer night. Cas watches him intently, face flickering warmly in this scattered light, flaring bright against their daughter’s hair, where she has tucked herself against her papa’s chest. He sings to them, low and off key, but he sings for them, and Cas smiles at him like Dean is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, it’s a ‘how the hell did I ever get so lucky?” smile, Dean knows, because he feels his features shaping the same expression back. Emma yawns, lulled by Dean’s voice, the same one that’s sung her to sleep every night, and when they finally walk back, it’s with a sleeping daughter, whom they lay gently in her bed. They each giver her a kiss, Cas makes sure that she has her bunny, while Dean turns on the night light. Dean takes Cas’ hand and leads him to their room where they make love, slow, gentle, almost revenant, like they have all the time in the world. Dean falls asleep against Cas’ chest, warm, safe, content, peaceful. His sleep is deep and dreamless until he’s woken by small hands touching his face. 

“Hey, baby girl,” Dean mumbles, “you have a bad dream?”

She shakes her head no. Dean glances at the clock, it’s barely four. 

“C’mere, kiddo.”

He scotches over, making room for Emma, and Emma snuggles on Cas’ chest taking up the space that Dean’s vacated for her, the spot right over Cas; heart. He extends his arm so that he’s holding both Cas and Emma, and Cas, still mostly asleep, opens his arms for her, too, strengthens his grip on Dean, and pulls his family in tight, places a kiss on both their foreheads. 

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers, and Dean and Emma smile in the darkness because Cas is hardly ever coherent before he’s had his coffee, and grumpy morning Cas is endearing in his own way. 

They make pancakes when they wake up that morning with blueberries and bananas. Emma only gets slightly coated in syrup. It’s rainy, a lazy day, and Dean is almost relieved that they have a reprieve from the sunlight and the heat. They spend the day in their pajamas. Cas and Emma color while Dean clears the breakfast dishes. They watch a movie and play cards (or try to teach Emma how to play cards) in the afternoon. They order pizza for dinner, and curl up, all three of them, in Dean and Cas’ room when it’s time for bed. 

-

Emma both does and doesn’t want to go home. Dean understands that feeling. It’s been nice here. Calming, but there’s something about home, about having one, that is still so precious and so novel to him, that he can feel it, this week being away, can hear the siren song calling him back, to the home they’ve made, to the life they’ve built.

They take one last look at the ocean before it’s time to leave. Emma chases a seagull, looks for a last perfect shell, while her parents watch. Cas comes up behind Dean, wraps his arms around his waist, perches his chin on his shoulder.

“I enjoyed this,” he says, “very much,” he places a gentle kiss against Dean’s neck, “thank you.”

Dean squeezes Cas’ hand, where it’s resting against his stomach, “Me too.”

“Let’s go home.” 

Somehow, when Cas says it, it sounds even better, and, even now, years later, it has fireworks going off just inside his sternum.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “yeah, let’s go.”

They pile in the Impala. Cas is wearing his aviators and Emma is strapped in her car seat. Dean takes a deep breath. 

“Special occasion,” he announces, “Emma gets to pick the music.”

Emma’s eyebrows rise impossibly high, her chest puffs out with pride, and Cas struggles not to laugh at this particular brand of father daughter bonding, instead, he passes her the box of cassette tapes and she carefully inspects them all before picking one and handing it to Dean (she can’t read yet, but she’s picked up which colors go with which bands, more or less—Dean thinks he may have inadvertently caused her to have some weird color associations for the rest of her life). 

Blue for Blue Oyster Cult is easiest.

“That’s my girl,” he says, giving her a fist bump.

She beams. 

Cas rolls his eyes, kisses Dean, and takes the box back from Emma. 

“Let’s ‘get this show on the road,’” he says.

Burnin’ for You blares from the speakers at they hit the highway. All three of them sing along.

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this ridiculously fluffy, almost nonsensical thing. I don't know where this sudden outpouring of domestic dean/cas and emma fluff is coming from, but I sincerely hope that you enjoyed it. xo


End file.
